ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL, Ill. — After nearly three years of construction, the Rock Island National Cemetery is getting ready to complete its multi-million dollar expansion project.
Work began in 2021, since the cemetery was running out of burial space for veterans and their family members. The cemetery averages 800 burials a year and currently has around 27,000 headstones and more than 37,000 people buried on the Arsenal.
"That's one of my biggest fears is running out of space," director Matt Tomes said. "What are you going to do then? And so, this keeps us open for at least another 15 years and gives us more time to figure out what we're going to do next."
The project adds about nine acres to the cemetery's current space and more than 5,800 new burial spaces. That includes 2,000 pre-placed crypts and 1,500 columbarium niches, in addition to in-ground cremation plots and memorial markers.
The cemetery has already began using the columbarium niches, the above ground structure to hold cremation urns. Tomes said those have been growing in popularity in past years.
"I don't expect to go into the pre-placed crypts, probably for another year," he said.
The majority of the construction work is now complete. There's just minor work still, such as some concrete replacement and irrigation, before it can officially be turned over to the National Cemetery. Tomes anticipates that happening around Memorial Day. They originally estimated it'd be complete in late 2022.
"We though it was gonna go a lot quicker than it did, but you know, with every construction project, there's always things that slow you down," Tomes said. "Being on the Rock Island Arsenal, we're on bedrock so that bedrock really slowed down construction in the beginning. Once they got moving, things turned around pretty quick."
He's excited the project is finally nearing completion, adding that it's important to have this cemetery available to the community.
"There's no other cemetery like this around here," Tomes said. "A lot of people come out here and they'll spend hours at the gravesite just mourning and grieving. The white headstone, when you see that on the gravesite, it's kind of closure and it helps people. But this is a great place. There's a lot of stories. Just inside every headstone, there's a bunch of stories. Every section, there's heroes all over the place around here."
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